Long Live the Queen
by maybe okay
Summary: Emma and Henry have their good memories and happy endings. While Regina flickers between the villain she used to be, and the person she's not quite sure she can be anymore. Alone, she realizes, is how she's meant to live.


**Author's note**: First fanfiction, but that winter-finale broke my heart and I had to do something for the feels that I was feeling. I'm not sure exactly where this is going, I have no story idea in mind really, just these _feels_. This is going to be filled with angst and all the horrible things that we hope won't be true once we get our ladies back in March. We saw Emma and Henry a year later, now it's time to see Regina's year.

For some reason I decided to do this in second person, which I seem to have difficulty staying in, so if there is a misplaced "her" or "she" in there, it's just my inability to write like a proper human being. Apparently the written word isn't my friend. I have no beta, so all the mistakes are my own.

**Summary**: Emma and Henry have their good memories and happy endings. While Regina flickers between the villain she used to be, and the person she's not quite sure she can be anymore. Alone, she realizes, is how she's meant to live.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Once Upon A Time, or any of its characters. Though, I wish I did because there would have been a Hug in 'Going Home', probably a kiss too, but hey, we can't all have what we want.

* * *

You think you know pain. You think you know the burn and tear of agony like it is your common bed fellow; a constant that has shivered like a promise through your bones for as long as you've been on this earth.

You're wrong.

This pain is all encompassing, it fissures through your blackened heart and plows viciously into your lungs. Tightening your throat and drowning your choked breaths. You could die in this moment, and some selfish part of you would welcome it. The part of you that always whispers the quietest; lower than your screaming anger and your bellowing sadness. That stage whisper that fits too perfectly into those silent moments of self-doubt; _isn't it over yet? Aren't I done?_

You want her to look back just once, even with her clean slate of memories; you just want one final connection to take with you. Something that says _thank you_, something that says _I'll remember_; but there isn't a flicker of green eyes to meet, there is a lofty weightlessness that seems to always accompany self-sacrifice.

You've become immune to the light feeling hollowing out your demon bones; it struck you like a physical blow when you helped break your own curse, it staggered your step when green death growled through your blood like a hound chasing the call. All those subsequent moments after are laudable in their credit, but they don't feel like blows any longer, just steps that had to be done.

This last sacrifice hurts for a whole new reason; there is nothing light about it, nothing uplifting or airy; the heavy weight bottoming out your blackened heart. The resurfacing red upon the blood-toting organ _burns_ so horribly that you wished yourself stone so as not to feel it. Fingers ached and curled to rip the offensive organ from the depths of your own chest, just to _not feel_ the horrible ache in your flesh and bones.

The purple engulfs you like a sinister embrace, cold and cloying in its grip, before you are spat back out upon a world that you've ruined. The tight confines of a forgotten gown, the prick of piled hair and the heavy layer of your warrior's paint set upon red lips and darkened eyes.

"We're back," the uncertain words are like a crack of thunder announcing a storm; more voices join in with hushed concerned and chattered assurances. _We'll figure this out. Everything will be alright. We just have to have faith._ You want to laugh at them and their platitude, you want to denounce their hopes and beliefs.

"Regina?" It's spoken softly, the tone one might use on a cornered animal; you think it might be the black leather and displayed assets. They're remembering destroyed happiness and a crusade of vengeance. It's Charming who has the courage to place a questioning hand on your shoulder, his fingers grip quickly and release as if he can't believe he's actually touching you. "You alright?"

"Fine." Your words are level, a drawl fit for the queen you had been, the queen you were once more, but when you turn tumultuous dark eyes to him, he flinches. Not because they're angry or vicious, but because he can't quiet settle the thought of surrendering brown within the confines of their villain.

"Regina, it's okay to be s-"

"I'm," bitten words with a snap of predator teeth, "fine." Magic roars through your veins in ways that you had forgotten in Storybrooke; even when it had returned, there was never the cradle of power that you could set yourself back upon. It sparks at your fingertips and Charming steps back, his hand naturally going to the hilt of his blade. This is comforting, this you know. But the passion isn't there, the anger isn't present. There is just numbing sadness that comes in the form of yellow paint and eyes that won't look back. It comes in the pleasant blankness on your son's face as he looks right through you, the invisible barrier between you might as well have been insurmountable miles.

You can't be here.

The presence of all this _hope_ is choking you in ways that you can't even describe. It sickening and desperate, it claws at your heart and asks you to _believe_. But you're all out of dreams, you're just tired, and sad, and finally alone. Your father is dead by your own hand, and it's with a sickened smile that you realize, you've killed your mother as well.

You try not to think of boyishly blank faces, and missed green eyes. Of yellow paint and forgotten towns. It's only when Snow takes a step toward you that you realize you've been staring blankly; her expression oddly concerned, and _that_ is what angers you. _How dare they_? Her eyes are green too, but they aren't the ones you _need_ to see, they're a pale reminder of what you are missing. The slope of the woman's chin and nose mock you.

And just as she opens her mouth to say something inanely _good_, you flick out your hand; dramatic and reminiscent of decades past, when you were feared, when you were both nightmare and reality. And vanish. Always swallowed by rolling curls of purple smoke, and those _wrong_ green eyes set upon your own just make you _angry_.

* * *

Your castle is in ruins. The halls crumble and fall away as you stride down forgotten corridors. You don't know if this is because of the curse, or because of the people who ransacked it once the curse had broken.

All you know is that you are alone. So wholly alone.

The frightening torches and wrought iron bars make you frown now; you crave the cream carpet and off egg-white walls of your mansion. The pale blues of his room, and the simplistic elegance of your life. No, former life. The mayor is dead. She died with Storybrooke.

Long live the queen.

* * *

But you can't be her anymore, can you? You don't know how to arrange features into snarls and caustic grins, you've forgotten how to prowl and stalk like the monster you are. You've been coddle with the words of babes.

_You're not a villain._

But aren't you? You're your own worst enemy, always have been, and it seems like you always will be. You may not be ruining entire kingdoms, you might not be declaring you plans to destroy the happiness of all those around you. You're quiet content aren't you? Harboring this spiraling darkness within, a twisted and foul kind of vengeance that has nothing to do with the world around you.

It is inside you, and always will be. There is no savior to pull you through the darkness now. She is but a figment, just as you are nothing more than a story. A few words upon a page, a forgotten whisper upon a breeze. But you comfort yourself with this; because if she had remembered and hadn't come for you, you would shatter. Every harrowing blister upon your soul would rupture and there wouldn't be a cure for that kind of soul devouring damage. So even with this sacrifice, you manage to be selfish. You spend your lonesome days thinking about how she _would_ have torn worlds apart to find you, and at night, with your tears, you lament that you took that chance away from her.

_Just in case she didn't_.

The months roll by with no more spectacle than the day upon a calendar. The passage of time hardly touches you, it is a set of phantom fingers that you have gotten so good at ignoring. You measure time differently. How many nights you can go without thinking of blonde hair and jutted hips presenting a scratched star? How many thunder storms you can weather without thinking of a small warm body pressed tight against you, shivering with every crack of thunder?

You're not a mother. You have to remind yourself when you wake in the night to the patter of ghosts steps upon carpeted stairs. _He must be thirsty_. You find yourself thinking before you remember the cobbled halls and damp stone of a foreign home. This isn't the home of your boy, he's never seen the grand stairs or the soiled dungeons. He's never seen banners of black and grey, or the chilling paintings of blood and war.

In these halls the Evil Queen is alive and well.

* * *

Snow white tries to navigate the brier of thorns that has devoured leagues of land around your self-imposed prison. The brown curls of brittle death chew toward the sky so horribly you hardly noticed. They grew with each tumultuous thought that spirals through the pitch of your soul. Your desolation and loneliness fertilizer for their sinister growth; this sudden abundance of magic pouring off you like a breath of life. So integral to your being, the subject of your very existence, but you forget about it so easily.

_Magic isn't the answer_. You have to remind yourself, like you had reminded a boy who wasn't your. Not really.

"Regina!" She yells, her voice cracks and you think she might be desperate; something has happened, this isn't like the other times she's tried to weather your wasteland. She is a spec of color within the color bled world that you have existed; the only color is green eyes, and blond hair. Messy brown strands, and rosy cheeks. You think you might very well be mad, but that's perfectly alright. Isn't it? Being the Mad Queen is leagues better than her evil counterpart. You find the questionable grin that curls your lips comforting; it feels natural these moments. Tick, tock.

"We need you, Regina!" The hiss and thwack of a blade accompanies the words; a saber trying to cut through corkscrewed vines and wolf teeth thorns. Their very tips dripping with a red viscous fluid that suggests the idea to turn away and leave the Mad Queen to her exile. Months, months, months. And you realize for the first true moment, that you haven't spoken since you've returned. Not a single word beyond the half thought conversations with the ghost of a boy, and his insufferable blonde mother.

When Snow White leaves, and silence once again reigns; you wonders when you've became their lifeline

* * *

Your dreams are mindless blurs of grey, and grey, and grey. Smoke choked walls, and windblown sheets, but there is a warmth pressed to your back that sustains you. It shields you from the madness for only a few moments, and you know the arm tight around your waist will never let you stumble alone.

"Go back to sleep," is the grumbled words that are spoken against the skin of your neck; the whisper of soft lips does something to your being. An undulation of your spine that presses the swell of your behind into the cradle of comforting hips. The groan that sounds doesn't come from your lips, but those of the woman holding you. "Come on," the tone is placating, but the scrap of teeth against the bend of your neck speaks of other actions.

"We've a lot to do, darling," you find your voice strange in these dreams, because you realize you've forgotten the sound of your own vocal cords. "Your incessant mother is demanding my presence," the tumble of blond strands that fall over your shoulder as a crown is tucked into the crook of your neck.

"Don't talk about my mom while we're naked in bed, it's wrong and – kills the mood." The stuttering words cause you to chuckle, a deep throated sound that belongs to the mayor. To the person that you're both pretending that you still are. "You should probably go," reluctant words of encouragement, giving wings to the thoughts that had already been plaguing you in your waking hours, "The quicker you do whatever she wants, the faster you can be back here with me."

When you wake up to lonely sheets and vaulted ceilings, you have to remind yourself that she's out there. Not for you, not anymore, but somewhere there is a blond; maybe dreaming of you, or maybe it was just that creeping madness again. You're honestly not sure which you prefer more.

* * *

Blood, fire, death, _sadness_. This is the scent that reaches your nose when you finally pull yourself from your exile; a small boy who doesn't remember you asked you to save his family. Coaxed you with gentle words and placation that this is what you are now; a _hero_. The savior while his other mother wasn't quiet able to make it to fulfill her calling.

_Just for now_. You promise the imaginary boy; just until the blond can find the time in whatever busy schedule she has to save the two idiots and their army.

You've heard whispers of the Wicked Witch; a cruel breed of woman who had put suffering so high on her list of accomplishments, even the Evil Queen would have been impression. Maybe even frightened. But you aren't that person anymore, you are something worse, you are someone who doesn't flinch or shake, you are numb and disillusioned to these unnecessary realities. Soon you would be back beyond the brier, with your damn halls and forgetful ghosts.

"So," a wicked crawl of tone brushed against your sense, "The Evil Queen has decided to join us after all, I was beginning to fear you'd stay locked away in your little castle forever." White teeth vicious against green skin, fingers hooked into claws just _aching_ to tear flesh from bone. The Evil Queen would have ruffled feathers at the implied insult, but the Mad Queen seemed so very _annoyed_ that this is what it's come to.

_Fool._ You think, and tip your chin down; the magic running like rampant children through your veins are howling in glee, it's been denied playtime for so long, and _finally_ it has a playmate to wretch and ruin. To tear apart and sew together. To hobble and terrorize. Didn't you remind your forgetful ghost that you aren't a good person? Didn't you dash away words like _hero_ and _savior_?

Maybe you were beginning to forget, too.

* * *

The Wicked Witch can cry. You've almost forgotten that villains have tears too, because it's been _so long_ since you've shed one. But when she's broken and ruined at the center of a battlefield, your magic coursing vicious circles like tethering rope around her, you're reminded. You've eclipsed yourself in emotion, lost yourself to the feeling burning beneath your skin and it's set you apart. This woman, this _creature,_ doesn't know what it means to feel the kind of emotion it means to be the villain.

And maybe the savior, too.

You've staggered from each role with every step you've taken these weeks of campaign; flickering from one to the other so seamlessly that if you hadn't had the whispered words of your forgetful, forgetful boy you'd lose yourself. You aren't sure which role lords over this fallen woman until your fingers curl to cut off her air, impassive as she stutters and chokes; a dazzling golden bracelet preventing her own magic from escaping the _heavy_ and _angry _weight of your violet command.

You hear the two idiots stutter for you to stop; that this isn't how they do things. And you find your smile twisted and reminiscent of _something_. Of stepping off a boat and suddenly being a _hero_. Of suddenly and unsettlingly being included into their idea of _they_. But that was the mayor, that was the mother. They haven't really met this new you, have they? Because you'll protect them, even if it makes them hate you, because the ghost of a boy asks you to at night, just like how his green eyed mother doesn't have to. Because you just know she's asking too.

A snap of a wrist is all it takes, curled fingers and sharp nails, and a delicate green neck is rotated in such a manner that everyone present flinches. Except you. You'll honor this broken woman with the only kindness you have left in your black and red heart; to not look away. You aren't Snow White, you don't grant pardon, after pardon. You'd never stop the firing squad, because that kindness is the reason why they're standing here in blood and death. It's why you were allowed to love a boy so wholly it ruined you in ways death could never manage to accomplish.

* * *

Snow White approaches you while your hands are still red. You've tried to scrub the crimson from your skin, but it's stained into creases and the beds of your animal nails. You flinch at how her eyes are so _sad_ and filled with such _pity_, that you consider leaving right then. But you know you won't; maybe it's her green eyes that remind you a little more exactly of the shade of green you were missing. It wasn't until right now, that you think you may truly be mad. How could you forget the exact color of her eyes, if she speaks in soft tones to you every night?

"I'm sorry," the raven haired woman chokes, tears cuddled to the corners of her eyes, "I'm so sorry you had to – that you –." Always the hero, she didn't know how to apologize for shattering someone's sanity. Because you know they see it. The distant stare, the purse in your lip, and the simple fact that in the five weeks you've been flickering in and out of their lives and battles like a vengeful spirit. You haven't spoken a word. Silence is your companion, because you realize the uselessness of the spoken word.

"You should come back," still hopeful under all that heavy sadness, those green eyes lacking the spark that really speaks to you. "We can help you," spoken so earnestly, you have to smile. Even with your blood stained hands, and your lunatic eyes, she's still trying to connect with you. You want to lie, you want to say it doesn't touch some warm part of your battered heart, but it does. Because some torn and shredded part of you will always crave this woman. In a way that borders somewhere near family, and nowhere near acceptance.

_No, you can't_. You don't say this out loud, you only extend a ruined paw to cup her smooth cheek. Something inside you basks in how she doesn't flinch, how she even leans slightly into the touch. _Foolish girl_, you think, and it's almost affectionate. You've gone beyond what hatred is deserved and what score is up on the board. Decades have rolled past and whatever price has been paid is leagues higher than either of you should have had to relinquish. Her eyes finally spark, and you find yourself really smiling. Not a junkyard grin, or a twisted grimace of teeth. Because you can remember blond hair and golden stars so much clearer now.

As you're swallowed by violet smoke, you decide this is worth the new stain on your soul.

* * *

A boy's dreams are mundane when they aren't fantastical; when your grey, grey, grey world isn't infested with knightly battles and grand adventures, it's something as simple as your kitchen table. Most of the small details are wrong; the plates have different patterns, the curtains are years removed, and the table is smaller. Just the two of you. But you recognize the breakfast bar and the bowl of fruit you always insisted upon even though he never indulged.

"Why're you so sad?" He asks you, his eyes always looked browner in your dreams, and you wonder why. Their hazel depths questioning in that familiar way that used to frighten you when your curse was present and his goal was to tear you asunder. _You're not a villain._ The words are a mantra you're not quite sure you believe. _You're my mom. _Even this isn't truth anymore; maybe in your heart he's you child, but to the world. You're a story. A cautionary tale of vanity and vengeance. That _evil never wins_.

But aren't you so tired of losing?

"I'm not sad, sweetheart." You reply, you're smile half thought and natural in these moments, because you're remembering how to be a mother. "I'm so happy to see you." To see the boy you're realizing you can't live without, to see the boy whose features sometimes twist awkwardly in confusion when your eyes meet. You know this is your mind supplying sustenance to your isolation, it's feeding your fragile emotions so that your flare for dramatics remains dormant.

No grand schemes. No curses or declaration. Just this false moment, in the mind of a mad woman.

"It's your eyes," he says like he hasn't heard you, and you think he might not; because the dreams of a boy aren't clear. You're probably shrouded in that grey, grey, grey smoke, bleeding into part of the decor, confusing and disorienting. But still, you sit quietly, a forgotten fork clasped in shaking hands while he gaze upon him. While his blond mother's features blur at times, she will always remember the exact shade of his eyes, despite the false color in these dreams. She'll remember the winter rose to his cheeks when he spends just a minute too long in the cold of winter. The boyish slope of a child's chin and cheek, even though she suspects he's losing those boyish qualities as time rolls past for him.

How long has it been? Almost a year.

"I wish I could help you," the declaration nearly splits your face with the ensuing smile. He ambles to his feet with the loose confidence of a boy who doesn't remember Neverland, who doesn't know the horrors of life yet, because he has such _good memories_. And you're horribly glad for a moment that he doesn't remember you; because you are a vast majority of those horrors. He loved you, you were his mother. But he has a new one now; one who raised him to be kind and gentle, who cautioned him to always be careful, who was so _proud_ of who he was.

You know all this, because these are your memories; before the distance, before that accursed book. Your brown eyes and smile have been replaced by green ones and loose grins; by childish antics and casual declarations. His first smile, his first step, his first word; all these things that you cherished, you had willingly given to another to own. But, you've gotten so good at compromise these last days, haven't you?

"You do," you whisper, though you know you're nothing more than a shadow upon that grey, grey, grey world of his dreams. "So very much, you do." Because it's the nights that you see his too brown eyes that you don't wonder why you're still alive.

Isn't that enough? It is for you.

* * *

A year. It whistles by with the approach of winter; the bite and chill permeating the air, and you can hardly believe it any more. Sitting regally in your crumbling parlor, the gaping hole in the wall one of the many things you neglected to fix. Somehow all the disrepair comforted you; because if these walls could still stand after the beating they had received, couldn't you? But they again, you're positive the castle had a much sturdier foundation. Your life has always been the fickle shift of whimsical sand. Displaced and always in motion.

A year. Your heart putters with the unspoken promise you made to yourself; to exist, to live, to _something_ long enough to emulate hope. Your bones creak and your blood feels sluggish; even your magic has become lethargic as it pulls and pushes from the dark and dormant corners you've shoved it to. You're surprised you've lasted this long, but suppose that the horrible notion of a _fighting spirit_ took time to dwindle down to that bare defeatist whisper.

_Isn't it over yet? Aren't I done?_

"Finally," your voice is shattered, an egg-shell whisper that is more animal growl than human tone; you've forgotten that words are useless in these moments of revelation. That the silence has snuffed at your heels like a sinister hound, waiting for the scraps that were left of your soul. You've clutched at them like the barest shreds of cloth in a winter storm. They've comforted you, they've kept this last slip of sanity hot and alive for a year. But your grip is growing loose, fingers finally uncurling to accept a fate that you've always known in yours.

"Your Majesty?" The mirror asks from the shards of a broken mirror; his face distorted and unusually – upset. You think he might be losing his faith in love, and you're ashamed to take this blame too. He loved you, even if he hasn't spoken once during this nonspeaking exile. You weren't even sure if he was still here, if he still haunted these halls like you have set yourself to. "Your Majesty, what're you –." It's the click of an ornamental dagger that stutters his gravel tone; it's the reflection in a silver blade that he pours his likeness upon. You look down at his hazed features and realize it's been days since you've slept.

You didn't want them to know. You didn't want them to worry about your sad eyes or your chilling skin. This was your last gift to them; the gift of truly forgetting you. Never again would you haunt their dreams with sadness and confusion. You would never again be grey, grey, grey in their clouds of uncertainty.

"I'm tired," you offer instead, and your smile spells out the life of someone who had to fight so hard for even the smallest scrap of happiness. With a coward father, with a heartless mother, with a hopeless love, with the loveless marriage, with a harrowing mentorship, with a deceiving hope, with a horrible choice, with an endless war, with a hollow victory, with a precious undeserved child, with a challenging rival, with a hurtful realization, with a green death and a black diamond. And it all coiled deep into your soul, eclipsed so completely by green clouds turning purple, and yellow paint upon torn tires driving down the road. With messy brown hair and sparkling green eyes.

"She never looked back," you explain, as if this is explanation enough, but you're really just a mad queen at her final string. A frayed and torn strip of twine that has tried it's hardest to hold your head upon your shoulders, but it's grown lacking in recent times. "I suppose it's for the best."

You try to convince yourself of this when you plunge the dagger home between the gaps in your ribs; the angle is awkward, the clutch and flop of your limbs disgraceful, and you're glad to know that no one will ever find you. Because you're the Mad Queen, so comfortable in her isolation.

As your heart beats its final time, around the expertly stationed dagger you see a flash of green upon the sky; you think your mind will never stutter in its hope that you'll reconsider. Because aren't you just strong enough to survive a dagger to the heart? You're a fighter, and that flash is a promise of something better, but you're just so tired. Closing your eyes, you succumb to that final darkness. To whatever hell you've rightfully deserved.

* * *

Leagues away, miles from an ever grown brier labyrinth, the royal couple clasps hands as the portal devours the grey, grey, grey sky. The crack of thunder spits two figures through with the force that would shatter bodies if it had anything to really do with physics. When it is swallowed again, they race to the pair; messy brown hair slightly higher than it had been a year ago, and green eyes desperate for something.

"Where's Regina?" Emma asks with a desperation she can't recall feeling for anyone beside her son – _their _son. The woman who haunted her dreams for a whole year finally had a name, finally had a story and the fact that neither she nor Henry had seen her in days.

Some unsettling feeling had shattered her heart as she had fallen from the sky, some feeling that said she was _too_ late. That even though she was the savior, there were something's that not even she could fix. That the person who needed saving the most had finally given in, that the happy ending she had cast aside for her memories had been in vain. That they person she was trying so desperately to get back to had ceased to wait.


End file.
